


even in the half-light, we can see something’s gotta give

by aurilly



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:12:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The decade may be different, but the secrets are the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	even in the half-light, we can see something’s gotta give

"I should be getting back," Juliet says, rolling over on the flowery cotton sheets she brings each time from her little yellow house. She washes them every time, so it always smells foreign, like soap and chemicals Richard's never smelled before. It smells like the future---his future, apparently, with her.

"I should, too. They'll miss me." He pauses for a beat.

He doesn't ask if she will miss him (as much as he misses her during the long hours of the days in between), but she answers anyway, with just a wry smile and a softening of her eyes.

They both understand the concept of duty all too well. She has a responsibility to her people, and he to his. But here, once a week, under the cover of palm trees and by the side of the ocean, there's no one to answer to.

The clock's always ticking, though.

"I'll walk you as far as the pylons."

"You always do." She kisses him lightly before throwing him his shirt. She has this way of sitting up as straight as an arrow, wordlessly studying him as he does the most commonplace things, like zip his pants and tie his shoes. She's watching him, but her gaze is far away, and he knows she's thinking not of another place, but of another time.

"I don't hate you," she says, apropos of nothing. He wonders if this is her way of saying she loves him. It's frustrating---but also wondrous--how she knows every button of his to push, knows all the stories he has to tell before he's told them, knows him better than she has any right to when he's still only beginning to understand her.

He hedges his bets when he replies, "These weekly meetings wouldn't make much sense if you did."

Her mouth laughs even though her eyes still reflect whatever seriousness has suddenly possessed her. "I could be crazy. You never know."

"You aren't."

Juliet leans forward and waits for him to pull her in close. "Please remember," she whispers, and it's almost too fierce, too desperate, to be tender. "No matter what, I don't hate you."

Richard pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear and breathes in one last drink of her before getting up. He feels a sense of dread, and all the questions they've agreed he'll never ask bubble to the surface: what happens to the... what does he do... when does she leave him... But he's good at keeping a tight lid. So is she---learned it from him, she always says. "I'll remember. And just for the record, I don't hate you either."

*

 

They're lolling on top of the flowery cotton sheets, older now, more worn, but smelling of the same soap.

"I want to go home, Richard. Why won't you help me go home?"

The moment shatters. This is always what does it.

"I can't. Ben..."

"You outrank Ben. If you---"

"It doesn't work like that."

Juliet draws back, her hair catching the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window so that it looks as though she's wearing a halo of fire. An angel damning him for his selfishness. He should never have brought her here. He had a choice and he chose his own happiness at the expense of hers, convincing himself that this was what she wanted, too, even though she couldn't possibly know it, even though he knew it wasn't the life that sweet woman in Miami would ever have chosen for himself.

"It could if you wanted it to," she presses.

"I'm sorry, Juliet."

It can't be long now. The thin scar along her shoulder that he remembers being relatively fresh when they first met is currently a bleeding cut hiding underneath a bandage.

"I hate you." She doesn't raise her voice. She doesn't even sound angry... only tired, depressed. "I hate you."

He closes his eyes, pictures her looking exactly as she looks now, only so long ago. "You don't hate me," he whispers to the woman in his mind.

A hard slap across his face makes him open them again, brings him back to the present. "How dare you."

"Juliet..." But there's nothing to say, no explanation he's allowed to give.

She throws him his clothes. "Get out."

Docile, he dresses and leaves, repeating as a mantra only after he's shut the door behind him, "She doesn't hate me."


End file.
